Undue Burden: Trying to Get an Abortion in Louisiana

By Gina Pollack

May 16, 2017

Video

When actually getting an abortion is even harder than the decision to have one.Published OnMay 16, 2017CreditCreditGina Pollack

When I set out to make this film in late 2015, the battle over restricting access to abortions in Texas was a national news story. Coverage featured graphs charting the hours women had to drive to find an abortion clinic in the state and maps tracing their paths. Experts weighed in on both sides of a gaping moral divide — politicians made pleas, doctors wrote op-eds. But amid the debate I felt a critical perspective was missing — that of the women across the country who were actually experiencing the effects of these laws.

The women in this film had already made the decision to have an abortion, a decision fraught with emotional and moral weight. But the barriers they encountered to actually get one seemed even more difficult than that initial choice.

To get an abortion in the state of Louisiana, patients must fulfill a long list of requirements: There is a state-mandated ultrasound during which the technician is required to ask if they want to listen to the heartbeat of the fetus, there is an informational pamphlet designed to discourage them from ending their pregnancy, and there is a 24-hour waiting period before they can return to the clinic for the procedure. Lawmakers say this time empowers women to “reflect” upon their choice.

In reality, these demands are extremely costly. Many women have to pay for travel and lodging, and take time off work. They then have to pay upward of $500 (the typical price of an abortion at 10 weeks) out of pocket for a procedure that is often not covered by insurance or Medicaid. This is compounded by the fact that most women in this position are low-income and already supporting a child at home.

In the past year and a half, little has changed. One exception is that when I conducted these interviews just over a year ago, the Women’s Health Center in New Orleans was one of only five clinics that provided abortions in Louisiana. Now it is one of three.

The anti-abortion movement in America is well funded and well organized, and its campaigns are working. Last year in Louisiana, more than a dozen anti-choice bills were introduced in the State Legislature, including one that would raise the mandatory waiting period to 72 hours and another that would require fetal burials. (The enforcement of these laws are blocked because of an ongoing court case.)

Bolstered by the results of the 2016 election, now the federal government has joined the fight. Vice President Mike Pence, the highest-ranking public official ever to personally address the March for Life, promised that the new administration would cut funding to women’s health providers and appoint a conservative Supreme Court justice. “Life is winning again in America,” he said.

And these promises were not hollow. In this first week in office, the president cut foreign aid to organizations that perform abortion or even discuss it as a reproductive health option. (Yesterday, his administration announced it is expanding the ban on funding tied to abortion overseas.)

The new Republican health care bill bars Medicaid dollars from going to any family-planning center that provides abortion. The only center that fits that description is Planned Parenthood.

“We’ve already been living under and experiencing these severely restrictive laws in Louisiana,” Amy Irvin, co-founder of the New Orleans Abortion Fund, told me. “This is what the future looks like for the rest of the country.”

Gina Pollack is a documentary filmmaker, radio producer and photographer based in Los Angeles.